«Ali and the other one wanted to kill us because we had asked for money or a work contract». The key to the Amendolara massacre is in this sentence. It is written in the statement made on June 2, 2026, by Taj Mohammad Alamyar, an Afghan born in 1991, the sole survivor of the Fiat Ulysse transformed into a fire trap at the IP service station, along state road 106, in Calabria.
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Inside that car, four migrant laborers were burned to death: Waseem Khan, Fazal Amin Khogyani, Ismat Ullah Qiemi, and Amjad Safi. Alamyar, burned and with a fractured arm, managed to save himself by jumping from the trunk while the vehicle was burning. His account now forms the core of the order with which the Investigating Judge of Castrovillari, Orvieto Matonti, validated the arrest and ordered pre-trial detention for Ali Raza and Safeer Ahmed, both born in Pakistan in 1994 and residing in Villapiana.
The charges are very serious: aggravated multiple homicide and aggravated attempted homicide, with the aggravating circumstances of premeditation, futile motives, and cruelty.
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The survivor’s account: the quarrel, the knife, then the fire
Before the investigators, Alamyar reconstructs the hours preceding the fire. He recounts the morning quarrel. He recounts the hashish. He recounts the knife. And he links everything, from the beginning, to the request to be paid or to have a regular contract.
«Ali had smoked hashish. The guy in the passenger seat took a knife and put it to the throat of one of the guys traveling with us. (…) The reason for these discussions was the lack of a contract».
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